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PREFACE, JANUARY 2009: As George W. Bush leaves office and Oba­ma steps in to the mael­strom his pre­de­ces­sor cre­at­ed, it might prove use­ful to reflect on fore­casts made in For The Record con­cern­ing Bush’s polit­i­cal agen­da.

Record­ed on Labor Day Week­end of 2000–the offi­cial start of the Pres­i­den­tial campaign–the pro­gram dis­cuss­es the Nazi her­itage of George W. Bush, the man who as pres­i­dent insti­tu­tion­al­ized tor­ture and gouged the right of habeas cor­pus and the Bill of Rights.

This pro­gram also fore­shad­ows the pre­cip­i­tous rise in oil prices and the mas­sive increas­es in defense spend­ing fed­er­al deficits.

On side 2, the pro­gram notes the Bush fam­i­ly’s rela­tion­ship with Osama bin Laden, high­light­ing the use of ter­ror­ism to cre­ate the Vice-Pres­i­den­t’s Task Force on Com­bat­ing Terrorism–a vehi­cle for imple­ment­ing a covert, extra-con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­men­tal struc­ture, pur­su­ing con­spir­a­to­r­i­al ends in Iraq and Iran. Sound famil­iar?

Next we note George H. W. Bush’s prob­a­ble involve­ment with the bomb­ing of Pan Am 103–U.S. gov­ern­ment com­plic­i­ty with air­borne ter­ror­ism and mass mur­der.

As For The Record lis­ten­ers eval­u­ate the analy­sis in the days to come, it is worth tak­ing stock of the accu­ra­cy of past prog­nos­ti­ca­tions.

Listen/download MP3: Side 1 | Side 2

Con­sist­ing large­ly of excerpts from pre­vi­ous For the Record pro­grams, this broad­cast high­lights the polit­i­cal her­itage to which George W. is heir. The Bush fam­i­ly has a long, exten­sive, influ­en­tial, and large­ly sin­is­ter his­to­ry.

1. The pro­gram begins with an excerpt of FTR-186. (The text is excerpt­ed from The Secret War Against the Jews: How West­ern Espi­onage Betrayed the Jew­ish Peo­ple, by John Lof­tus and Mark Aarons; St. Mar­t­in’s Press; copy­right 1994; ISBN 0–312-11057X.)

2. The dis­cus­sion focus­es on the pro­found involve­ment of George Her­bert Walk­er (W’s great grand­fa­ther) and his son-in-law Prescott Bush Sr. in the financ­ing of the Ger­man indus­tri­al con­cerns that backed Hitler. (The Secret War Against the Jews; pp. 358–9; 36061.) Prescott Bush, Sr., is the father of the for­mer Pres­i­dent and CIA Direc­tor and the grand­fa­ther of “W.”)

3. The Walk­er-Bush involve­ment with the invest­ment firm Brown Broth­ers, Har­ri­man & Com­pa­ny is a major focal point of the broad­cast. (Idem.)

4. In par­tic­u­lar, the pro­gram focus­es on the Ham­burg-Ameri­ka line, one of the Bush-con­nect­ed com­pa­nies that played a key role in Nazi espi­onage before and dur­ing World War II.

5. The com­pa­ny helped to finance the oper­a­tions of the SS. (Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile, by Paul Man­ning; Copy­right 1981 [HC] (copy­right held by the Man­ning fam­i­ly); pub­lished by Lyle Stu­art; p.43.)

6. The dis­cus­sion under­scores the strong con­nec­tions between Walk­er, Prescott Bush Sr. and Fritz Thyssen. (Thyssen was a Ger­man steel mak­er and one of Hitler’s ear­li­est and most promi­nent finan­cial back­ers. The Walk­er-Thyssen rela­tion­ship began in 1924.) (Idem.)

7. The pro­gram also excerpts FTR-186 (and the Loftus/Aarons text) with a look at George Sr.‘s involve­ment with the Nazi émi­gré milieu that spawned the Repub­li­can Eth­nic Her­itage Orga­ni­za­tion, lit­er­al­ly a Nazi wing of the Repub­li­can Par­ty. (The Secret War Against the Jews; pp. 369–71.)

8. A close polit­i­cal ally of Richard Nixon’s, George Bush mid­wifed the for­mal inclu­sion of the Nazi “eth­nics” in the GOP, uti­liz­ing his posi­tion as chair­man of the Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee. Bush lat­er used this same Nazi émi­gré net­work in his 1988 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. (Idem.)

9. In a shift of focus to George H.W Bush’s career as direc­tor of the CIA, the pro­gram high­lights George W’s brief­ing by the agency at its head­quar­ters. (The San Fran­cis­co Exam­in­er, 9/3/2000; p. A‑3.)

10. Reca­pit­u­lat­ing a sec­tion of FTR-214, the dis­cus­sion high­lights the pho­ny “oil short­age” of the late 1970’s against the back­ground of the alleged­ly real “oil short­age” of the year 2000. (The Secret War Against the Jews; pp. 333–335.)

11. In this impor­tant and exten­sive­ly foot­not­ed vol­ume, the authors draw on vet­er­an Amer­i­can and British intel­li­gence offi­cers in order to doc­u­ment col­lu­sion among ele­ments of George Bush’s CIA, the petro­le­um indus­try and the gov­ern­ment of Sau­di Ara­bia. Togeth­er, these ele­ments fab­ri­cat­ed an alleged Sovi­et petro­le­um short­fall, as well as a pho­ny “decline” in Sau­di oil pro­duc­tion. Career oil indus­try pro­fes­sion­al George Bush gave Jim­my Carter a CIA report that false­ly fore­cast a world-wide oil short­age. (Idem.)

12. The report also rumi­nat­ed about the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the Sovi­ets might invade the Mid­dle East in order to aug­ment alleged­ly fail­ing domes­tic pro­duc­tion. The goal of the report was to influ­ence Jim­my Carter to increase oil pro­duc­tion and to man­date weapons sales to Sau­di Ara­bia in order to “defend against the Sovi­et men­ace.” (Idem.)

13. Carter and Ener­gy Sec­re­tary James Schlesinger instead respond­ed with a pro­gram of con­ser­va­tion. This enraged the petro­le­um inter­ests, which then respond­ed with the pho­ny “gas short­age” of 1979. This gas short­age helped to pro­pel Jim­my Carter from office. (Schlesinger had resigned his post ear­li­er in Carter’s admin­is­tra­tion.) For­mer CIA direc­tor Bush became Vice-Pres­i­dent under Rea­gan and (accord­ing to some sources) became “pow­er behind the throne.” Even­tu­al­ly, it became evi­dent that the CIA report was false, and that the Mid­dle East was swim­ming in oil. Nonethe­less, the CIA/Saudi/petroleum indus­try fraud was suc­cess­ful in con­ning con­sumers into accept­ing dra­mat­i­cal­ly high­er gaso­line prices, desta­bi­liz­ing the Carter admin­is­tra­tion, and per­suad­ing Con­gress and the Pres­i­dent to autho­rize a Sau­di mil­i­tary buildup. That Sau­di build-up tipped the mil­i­tary bal­ance of pow­er in favor of the Arabs. Most impor­tant­ly, the pho­ny oil short­age set the stage for an unprece­dent­ed mil­i­tary build-up dur­ing the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tions. That mil­i­tary build-up tripled the U.S. nation­al debt in eight years.

14. Next, the pro­gram high­lights George W. advis­er Con­doleeza Rice’s role as a direc­tor of the Chevron Cor­po­ra­tion. (San Fran­cis­co Exam­in­er; 8/28/2000; p. A‑12.) If “W.” is elect­ed, there is a strong chance Rice will be Sec­re­tary of State.

15. In an excerpt of FTR-182, the broad­cast reviews busi­ness con­nec­tions between Bin Laden’s fam­i­ly and George W. Bush. (For­tu­nate Son; J. H. Hat­field; St. Mar­t­in’s Press; copy­right 1999.) Bush’s Arbus­to Ener­gy com­pa­ny was begun, in part, with mon­ey from one James R. Bath. Bath’s reput­ed asso­ci­a­tions run from the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency to the failed BCCI. The lat­er was a finan­cial insti­tu­tion involved in drug deal­ing, ter­ror­ism and arms traf­fick­ing. (It was used by Oliv­er North for some of his Iran-Con­tra machi­na­tions.) (For more on BCCI, see also Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M‑51, as well as FTR-29.) Bath was the Texas busi­ness rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Bin Laden’s fam­i­ly and the mon­ey he used to help start Arbus­to may very well have come, in part, from Bin Laden’s fam­i­ly.

16. Next, the pro­gram focus­es on George H.W. Bush’s piv­otal role in the Iran-Con­tra and “Iraq­gate” scan­dals. After dis­cus­sion of his par­don­ing of sev­er­al key par­tic­i­pants in the affair, the pro­gram turns to his involve­ment in the events them­selves. (The Los Ange­les Times; 8/28/2000; p. A13.)

17. Excerpt­ing FTR-174, the broad­cast focus­es on Bush and the world of “inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism.” (The Secret War Against the Jews; pp. 407–409; p. 429.)

18. Hav­ing chaired the Vice-Pres­i­den­t’s Task Force on Counter-Ter­ror­ism, George H.W. Bush over­saw and imple­ment­ed rec­om­men­da­tions issung from that Task Force. In a series of Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Deci­sion Direc­tives, Bush was giv­en com­mand of what authors John Lof­tus and Mark Aarons describe as “His (Bush’s) own pri­vate spy agency,” and “a White House with­in the White House.” (See FTR-29.)

19. Osten­si­bly cre­at­ed to pro­vide a rapid, pro­phy­lac­tic response to “inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism,” these net­works became the pri­ma­ry vehi­cles for the real­iza­tion of the ill-fat­ed, ille­gal and trea­so­nous Iran-Con­tra and Iraq­gate schemes. Far from being “out of the loop,” as he claimed, George Bush was the pri­ma­ry play­er in both affairs. (Idem.)

20. His “pri­vate spy agency” was the most sig­nif­i­cant ele­ment in the both the admin­is­tra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the oper­a­tions. (Idem.)

21. Next, we review George Bush Sr.‘s pres­ence at a meet­ing with (among oth­ers) Army intel­li­gence agents McK­ee and Gan­non. (Excerpt from FTR-228.)

22. This meet­ing had been a major point of inter­est for Iran-Con­tra Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor Lawrence Walsh. (Iran-Con­tra: The Final Report; pub­lished by Times Books.)

23. Both McK­ee and Gan­non were killed in the bomb­ing of Pan Am flight 103. (Gideon’s Spies, Gor­don Thomas; Thomas Dunne; copy­right 1999.) (The name of arms and drug deal­er Monz­er Al-Kas­sar has come up in con­nec­tion with the bomb­ing of Pan Am 103. The Pan Am insur­ance inves­ti­ga­tor’s report claimed that Al-Kas­sar was the author of the bomb­ing and that the attack was allowed to go for­ward in order to silence McK­ee and Gan­non. Al-Kas­sar was piv­otal­ly involved in the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal.

24. The pro­gram con­cludes with dis­cus­sion of George H.W. Bush’s post-pres­i­den­tial employ­ment as a speak­er on behalf of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church in Latin Amer­i­ca. (The mate­r­i­al is excerpt­ed from FTR-84. In turn, that broad­cast draws on The Dark Side of Rev­erend Moon by Robert Par­ry in I.F. Mag­a­zine; September/October/ 1997, Vol. 1, #2.)

25. Paid mil­lions for his work, Bush has been par­tic­u­lar­ly active on behalf of Moon in Argenti­na. (Idem.)